Daily Archives: April 30, 2013

I know he’s got a long way to go, but I’m willing to bet right now that cooperating with the NCAA will go down as the dumbest thing A.J. Green ever does his entire life. And whichever compliance genius in Athens advised that course of action ought to be unceremoniously shown the door.

“Clearly what you want: we want a committee that has football expertise, and we need to find the right people,” said Slive, who met last week with College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock and other officials in Pasadena.

“We want integrity, and we want transparency, because this is our opportunity to make sure that not only are we comfortable but you’re (the media) comfortable and all the fans are comfortable that this process is the way it should be. It’s not going to be easy.”

More like it’s not going to happen. Let’s face it, there are a ton of not-so-hidden agendas out there where the real battles over the selection committee will be fought.

Slive arguably has more at stake than anyone in the committee discussion. The BCS system has been highly favorable to the SEC, whose teams’ repeated postseason triumphs have helped bolster their favorability with the pollsters who currently vote teams into the title game. A committee untethered from the traditional polls could be more discerning and possibly less forgiving of the now 14-team league’s insistence on staying at eight conference games (the Big Ten will soon join the Big 12 and Pac-12 at nine) and feasting on Sun Belt and FCS foes.

Scott, who does not come from the basketball committee background, presumably wants his teams rewarded for their historically stronger nonconference schedules, but he’s also less familiar with the associated metrics. Delany, whose league has inarguably fallen behind of late, has spoken out in the past about valuing a conference championship and perhaps not rewarding a team like 2011 Alabama that did not win its own division. Bowlsby must be on guard that his conference won’t be penalized for its lack of a conference championship game.

It’s not outright dishonesty, or even the blatant conflicts of interest that have marred the Coaches Poll for years, that concern me. It’s the more subtle tug-of-war that the committee members are likely to engage in with close calls and how much spreading the wealth, so to speak, between the conferences enters into the decision process that has me nervous. (If there’s one lesson to be taken from the BCS experience, it’s that there will be a fair number of seasons with close calls.) Don’t think that’s not in the minds of Slive and his peers right now as they try to build the better mousetrap.

It seems to me that Slive has already won a very significant concession with the agreement that a conference can have more than one participant in the playoffs. Take a postseason that features two (or more) SEC teams on a regular basis, add the above vested interests and you’ve got a formula that virtually guarantees postseason expansion, Bill Hancock’s straight-faced denials notwithstanding.

“The cool thing is I would’ve beat the crap out of my body and now I don’t have to,” Pollack said. “I couldn’t do what (David) Greene has done and be an insurance guy. I have to have football in me and it’s in my blood. If I weren’t doing this I’d be coaching.”

Here’s a suggestion to let current players serve on the selection committee. Would they be paid for that?

An 11th-ranked Georgia team coming off its first SEC title in 20 years went on the road and thumped Clemson 30-0 to open the 2003 season in the team’s last meeting before a crowd of 83,000. Those Tigers were coming off a 7-6 season.

“All I remember is it was 900 degrees,” said David Greene, Georgia’s starting quarterback in back-to-back wins against the Tigers in 2002 and 2003. “Other than the score.”

That pretty much sums it up, other than the fact that Georgia, in true Casey Clausen fashion, played the game one-armed.

The visit to the “Death Valley” was a potentially dangerous one for the undermanned Bulldogs, who were without several key defensive starters, including star defensive end Will Thompson, who will miss the season with a knee injury. Coach Mark Richt also suspended eight players.

Quote Of The Day

“It's definitely different not knowing exactly who it's gonna be, but in a way, I feel like that's good,” he said. “One of my old coaches from Valdosta told me that competition is one of the best coaches. And I feel like, as well as each one of those three guys is performing, they're not gonna do anything but make each other better.” -- Jay Rome, The Red & Black, 3/25/15